Since opening its doors with just one bag machine in 1968, family-owned Bison Bag has grown into a major manufacturer of bags, pouches, and printed and unprinted rollstock. Fast-forward more than 30 years: The company now is home to more than 22 printing and converting machines and 50,000 sq ft of space, thanks to a steady flow of new customers and a growing zipper and stand-up pouch business. Bison Bag also has added solventless laminations to its converting capabilities and actively is researching 8- and 10-color printing solutions.

As with any successful operation, there are challenges to meet and overcome. One such challenge Bison Bag has faced over the years is getting static electricity under control on several of its machines, especially some of the older bag machines.

“The bags were coming out and going all over the place,” explains James Streicher Jr., VP of operations and son of one of the company’s two owners. “It was the basic run-of-the-mill bar that we had on there, the bars that you don’t get a whole lot of control from. You maybe get a half inch or an inch of static elimination.”

Looking for a new solution, Streicher walked the CMM 2005 show floor.

“We were in the process of trying to find, especially for our wicketers, something that would give us better static removal…At CMM, I was just milling around and I talked to Takk Industries to get some information on [their static control bars]. The pricing seemed really good, so we decided to give it a try on one machine.”

The company replaced all four of the bars on an existing machine with four Takk Industrial static control bars. The results were great, says Streicher. “The productivity has gone up quite a bit. The bars run nicely, and the operators running the machines aren’t complaining. The machine is now running rock solid.”

Streicher admits he didn’t want to get his hopes up but was pleasantly surprised at how well the machine ran with the Takk static control bars. He says the Takk bars have given the company a “really good bang for the buck.” So much so, Bison Bag has replaced all or some of its static control bars on six machines since April, including a new Ro-An bag machine that was shipped to the company just a few months ago.

“It’s a 41-inch Ro-An [bag machine]. For the difference in pricing, we wanted to see how much better [the Takk Ion Edge bars] would perform, and they performed quite a bit better than other solutions.”

Streicher hasn’t abandoned other static electricity removal systems, but he is satisfied with the addition of Takk static control bars as a cost-effective solution in his operation.

“I expected them to [perform well], but I was surprised they were as good as the other bars that were a lot more expensive. It is solutions like these that allow us to reinvest and fuel our growth.”